Arctic Winter Games Day 3: Medals, curling and some tabletop soccer

Some Nunavut and Nunavik athletes were flashing medals by midday Tuesday while others were facing crucial playoff games on Day 3 of the Arctic Winter Games.

“It’s very emotional, I don’t even have words to express it,” said Arianna Atienza, a 17-year-old curler from Iqaluit after a game against Alberta North on Tuesday morning.

These Arctic Winter Games, being held in Whitehorse, are Atienza’s third and likely her last as she will age out before the next ones are held in three years.

“I want to get the most of it this time,” she said.

Her under-18 female curling team sports a 2-2 record as of midday Tuesday, with wins over Yukon and the Northwest Territories and losses to Alaska and Alberta North. They are scheduled to face Yukon Tuesday at 3 p.m. MT (6 p.m. ET) in the opening playoff draw.

Meanwhile, as the Games continue, a lot of the athletes are finding time to relax by playing tabletop soccer, working out at the gym or hanging out around the Subway restaurant at the Canada Games Centre.

The teams’ medal count is shaping up with Alaska leading with 10 golds, 11 silvers and 19 bronzes, followed by the Yukon with 16 golds, 12 silvers and eight bronzes.

Team Nunavut sits in seventh place among the eight competing regions as of midday Tuesday with four silvers and a bronze.

Alaska is leading in the total medal on Day 3 of Arctic Winter Games, as of 4 p.m. ET Tuesday. (Screenshot courtesy of Arctic Winter Games)

The territory’s under-15 male doubles table tennis team won silver on Monday. In Arctic sports there were two more silvers, for Kayla Tikivik in under-17 female two-foot high kick and Breton McNeil in the triple jump open event. There was another silver in speedskating, for Méliya Allain in the under-19 female 1,000-metre race.

Team Nunavut also won a bronze in table tennis in the under-15 female category.

For Nunavik, Judith Naluiyuk earned a silver medal in Dene games for the open female stick pull event, while bronze medals went to Samson Esperon in open male stick pull and Aiva-Grace Mesher in the under-18 female stick pull.

The Arctic Winter Games in Whitehorse opened Sunday and run until Saturday. They brought together approximately 2,000 athletes from eight circumpolar regions Nunavut, Nunavik, Alaska, the Yukon, the Northwest Territories, northern Alberta, Greenland and the Sápmi region of Scandinavia.